


Candles

by Ladycat



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Judaism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-12 00:17:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There should be more, Willow knows. But the words she’s supposed to say are eluding her like everything else, a second candle cold and slippery against her fingers. “I used to remember,” she hears her voice whisper. “I don’t remember.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Candles

The candles are braided, each twist and turn disappearing around the other as they rise. Colors stain the pale, translucent familiarity of wax into something bright and cheery, then pale again as the flame flickers, pure gold against washed out blue and red and purple. Only the flame really looks real, free of artifice and goal: it flickers to hidden air currents, dancing to the music only it can hear. The wick sparks red, then pales back to orange as she watches. Then flicks to red again.

“It’s beautiful,” Dawn says. She’s entranced by the flame, watching it with eyes that glow leaf-green against the gold, leaning against Willow’s shoulder. “What’s it called again?”

“A hanukkiah,” Willow says. “Not a menorah. Those are different.” She wants to be able to say what, exactly, those differences are. Wants the information to just burble out of her the way it used to; a walking textbook, a living wikipedia. But the information she seeks dances itself to the corners of her mind, just out of reach. “These are just for Hanukkah. Um. I think there are more candle holders?”

“And this stuff?” Dawn snatches one of the flying bits of gold foil that Spike and Xander have been beaning each other with all evening off the table, holding it up. The imprint of a Hebrew letter— _gimmel_ —shines fake and plastic against the warmth of the candle. “It’s, um. Gelf?”

Willow giggles a little, a quiet sound Dawn probably feels more than hears. “Gelt, Dawnie. I.... ” She used to know what it was for, why little disks of chocolate are pressed together, letters and images she can’t quite place embossed on the sides. “It’s for the Maccabees,” she says lamely, unable to remember anything else.

“Willow?” That’s Xander, a hint of concern everyone else will read as teasing, coming over to replace her back-rest with his chest. He wraps himself around her, his awful Christmas sweater a burn against her back. “It’s pretty,” he says, chin on her shoulder, focused on the flickering lights.

There should be more, Willow knows. But the words she’s supposed to say are eluding her like everything else, a second candle cold and slippery against her fingers. “I used to remember,” she hears her voice whisper. “I don’t remember.”

“Um, you don’t remember how to make a hanukkiah?” The foreign word slips off of Xander’s tongue easily—he’s heard it, and the lectures, before. “’Cause I’m thinking even you probably never knew how to make one. Now me... ” He studies the golden object critically, an intensity Willow remembers from childhood—vanished with school and puberty—making the tip of his appear at the corner of his mouth. “It’s just a mold, I think. You created a cast-iron image of what you want, then pour the gold and while it’s still hot you—you aren’t listening to me at all.”

The worry is back, and bringing friends. She knows this is silly—it’s not supposed to bother her. She’s wicca, now, powerful enough to watch over the Hellmouth and simultaneously help raise Buffy’s sister, holding them all together even though she knows it’s not really her that does the holding—it’s Xander. Xander walks in all the worlds, not just the one Willow can’t seem to shimmy out of, and it’s him that keeps them whole and bullied Willow into having latkas and—

The candle is removed from her hands, replaced with the rough weave of a cloth-bound book. She glances down, eyes tracking over gold-laminated letters that no one but her could read. If she remembered how, to begin with. “Xander?”

“Do you remember Rabbi Kanterwitz?” Willow’s rabbi, from when she was little and Xander ended up going to Sunday school with her, just because he had nothing better to do. “I saw him, a couple weeks ago.”

And this is what Willow’s been dreading. The moment when the rest of the world sees her slow withdrawal and decides to Do Something about it. Willow’s honestly not sure if she’s going to fight or hide—instincts are clamoring in her, stronger now that Tara’s visiting the cousins she does like, in Michigan. Her voice cracks: “Oh?”

Xander’s chuckle makes the sofa they sit on rumble, a sound so familiar, so reassuring, that panic and uncertainty recedes automatically. She knows that everyone thinks she’s the stronger of the two; she bullies and mothers Xander, cajoling him through school and life. The truth, though, is that for the longest time it was Xander who held the reins. All Willow did was give Xander someone to love and dote on, the older brother she’d so desperately needed; he did all the rest.

“Yes,” he says, years slipping away into aether as he talks, “‘oh’. Also, he says, if you ever want to join a coven, his wife would love to have you.”

Willow goes so still that Dawn starts poking her, after a few minutes, voice growing shrill as she commands Willow to breath. When Willow does, the air is crisp and cold and smells faintly of oil burning steadily. She twists, looking at Xander; his eyes crinkle as he smiles at her, leaning down to kiss her mouth.

His stubble burns the tiniest bit, but that’s good too.

“Her coven?” Willow says. “My rabbi’s _wife_ has a coven?”

“Yup.” Xander tweaks Dawn’s hair, provoking her into making a face and flouncing over to sit by Spike. Willow shivers in unexpected cold—the squeaks when Xander wraps her up in arms and blankets, the way only children can tumble together. “Her coven. I hear they do a mean Hanukkah party, too. Like the one tomorrow night that I RSVP’d you for?”

She smacks him, automatic response that makes his smile even more broad. Then she’s laughing, reaching out just enough to light the first candle and place it in its holder, before flipping through the soft, cotton pages to find the right blessings.


End file.
